I want to cry, this time last year I went to Vienna for the first time. I miss it so much, I love Vienna with all my heart, it was the first time that I actually felt deeply moved by any place in my life. I have lived on 3 continents and nothing came close to being in Vienna.

I don't have the words to express just how much I appreciate this film.

I am from Hamburg and I have to say that Wien / Vienna is the most beautiful german speaking city

I come back to this film again and again because of its beauty, language and the important questions asked.  I visit Vienna again and again because I am living a part of my unloved life in my imagination; the upper middle class Jewish culture that formed the base note of the greatness of the city.  What was once and can never be again.

My next trip to Vienna will be my sixth...i do not plan to go anywhere else on my vacations for the forseeable future . An Austrian girlfriend took me on my first trip there. I had planned to go into the Alps as soon as we landed, but she said thats ok but give Vienna a day or two first...i did, and have yet to make it to the Alps and villages...I fell in love with all of Vienna and what it offers...it has spoiled me for the rest of the world . If theres a heaven on earth,...

Vienna is a great city to live. I lived for 6 month in this city. I like cars but when I was there I was enjoying U bahn, tram way and buses that I never felt I need to drive a car. I was walking at least 6 hours a day. I wish I could visit Vienna one more time.

Mimics my own Hungarian history from my paternal Grandfather's mother's side (the Gross side)...I think your father's painting where the Mother is seated and the Father walks on on a different path is similar to what happened to my family. The Balassa men lived but my Great Grandmother, Bella Gross Balassa, and my two Great Aunties, Rosie and Clarie, did not fair so well. I still, almost fifty-nine years old and soon to be sixty, have no idea how they died but I can only imagine it was a fate similar to your own great grandparents in this very riveting story. God bless all who are still  dealing with generational trauma, and I write and say this with a soft voice muffled by tears a la Sigmund Freud's beautiful quote. Vienna is beautiful in a stern, rigid way that breaks my heart remembering my Grandfather's stories of a Vienna that was his Alma Mater and yet, as a young Hungarian Scientist and Chemist, he experienced terrible prejudice, and only upon coming to the Americas, did he find true freedom from the angst and sorrow of becoming disenfranchised of a 2000 year citizenship and tie to a land, religion, and family roots that will forever more be lost to us. 💔

One of the things that I really love about Vienna is that old beautiful buildings stretch far outside the city center. In many European cities, the center of the city has old beautiful buildings but once get about 1 km outside of that, there’s not a lot of beautiful architecture. Because Vienna has been a big city for a long time, there are beautiful old buildings pretty much everywhere. Each Bezirk, or section , of the city feels like a little city onto itself. Each section has a lot of it‘s own administrative buildings and this gives Vienna a feeling that it’s a bunch of little cities grouped together. Vienna also has a very relaxed vibe like Austria in general. It‘s also a hell of a lot cheaper to live there compared to Paris, London, or Amsterdam for example. Obviously it‘s not as cheap as Eastern European cities like Budapest and Prague but you also get good schools, better paying jobs, and good hospitals/medical care. You don’t need to worry about somebody stealing your car if leave it on the street for a few days. Basically it’s a nice place to live.

This movie expressed all my love and fear of Vienna into perfection. My grandfather died at Maly Trostinets exactly as his parents did. My parents escaped to America in 1939. Other relatives made it to Shanghai and then San Francisco, and another contingent rode the old ships of William R. Perl's  rescue operation to Palestine (later Israel). I've had many experiences of seeing myself as my grandfather, reincarnated to be with the daughter, who became my mother.  This movie is so inspiring and gave me the release of my tears.

EVERY DAY IS A JOURNEY. SO MUCH TO SEE IN THIS WONDERFUL WORLD

I love this city. I feel like it's my spiritual home.

I'm glad I watched it and understand the personal views, however the present of Vienna is worth showing, for instance the easy and unpretentios way of the Viannese modern life, the excellent quality of living, the great energy. Yes the past is very important but the new generation is looking straight ahead into the future and so should we.

I am so happy I moved from depressing London to gorgeous Vienna. Finally I can enjoy an amazing new subsidised flat with affordable rent and no noise and good room temperature due to well isolated walls, a great free, open and comfortable public system, high quality and not genetically modified and/or artificial overpriced food from the supermarket, a society that focuses on coherence and empathy and not on egoistic behavior with no empathy for others where the only goal is to advance ones own "career", a job with proper employment protection and good pay, an amazing social social system in case something could go wrong (= increased personal freedom), hiking in the forests, enjoying loads of free entertainment (and not having to pay for every shit like in the UK), enjoying the numerous rivers and lakes to swim and the free beach bars during summer, the well maintained public space and infrastructure, no major crime areas, fresh air, lots of trees, lakes, nature for a major capital city, fresh tap water from the mountains, etc, etc the list goes on and on... I found that the major difference between English/American and Austrian/German society is this: English/American focuses on quantity, ie.: superficiality, show, etc.. to market itself as being something better than it is, by far! and many many people fall for this... Austrian/German society focuses  much more on quality in every aspect of life... but many foreigners won't understand this because this way of life lacks "commerciality" ;-) London being a major capital for "fashion" (= no actual value creation) and "finance" (= no actual value creation) is a good example to what I mean...

Thank you to Mr. Koerner for this informative and engaging video. I have read a lot of the comments, being myself Austro-Hungarian in ancestry I know exactly what Mr. Koerner is meaning in his 'personalized historical video essay'. He is simply walking the viewer through a slice of history that affected his family line and shaped his destiny. He has not intended to give us an accurate, academic research based and peer reviewed piece of documentation, but SIMPLY WALKING US THROUGH HIS FAMILY, ROOT, ETHNIC LENSE and making us feel what his parents, grandparents must have felt, went through by retracing their steps and venues through extremely turbulent historical circumstances which even give many trained historians a grave challenge to uncover, understand and make sense in modern times. Why are some of the commentators have a hard time understanding that this is a 'slice of life' and representation through a person's lense who is making his ancestry heard and somewhat understood by walking down on 'memory lane'??? We are such 'rapacious' creatures, jumping all sorts of 'mental guns' discrediting just about anyone and anything at a whim, instead of trying to understand eras, things, people, philosophies in their entirety as everything is in interplay and interconnection. I guess this is why history keeps repeating itself, due to much ignorance and quick, harsch, biased and unfounded criticism. Thank you for this video, you not only made my day, but inspired and educated me Mr. Koerner.

My husband and I recently did a cruise that took us to five countries in the eastern of Europe. Of all the cities we visited, my husband fell in love Vienna. He wants to come back. Thank you for this video, very good view of this city.

Im not from vienna, but i been going back almost every year and i want live in vienna, something about it make me go back.. i enjoyed your work! thanks

I am going to Vienna. My relatives live on Karntner Strasse.  I believe it is one of the rings.

Ich liebe diese Doku.

This film is so inspiring and touching..There are still so many things I don't know about Vienna...although I've always been living here...And  I have the same feeling  about it: It feels like home but with a distance...like I'd stay here for holidays and never come back home again...I just can't quite explain...But I'll always love this city <3

Fantastic documentary!!! The content, the photo, the music... Just great! !!!!